PBS/NPR Critic Bill McCuddy Has More Than 10 Best Films of 2025

Call it a technicality of riches. This year I have 12 films on my 10 Best List. I’m bad with math. Some of these I discovered as I often do — at the Hampton’s International Film Festival. And some I found like the rest of you, on line. A few are documentaries and I do vote in the Critic’s Choice Doc Awards every year so I’ve seen them all.

I actually teared up at more films this year than I have in a long time. And for the very first time in over 30 years of doing this, I couldn’t pick one that was best. So I picked two. Sue me. Actually don’t. Eddie Burke’s too busy.

Here’s the list.

10. (TIE) Materialists and Splitsville are a real tie because I loved both films for the same reason: Dakota Johnson. Ever since “Cha Cha Real Smooth” in 2022, I’ve said within a certain whispery character type, she’s Meryl Streep. Materialists has her as a New York matchmaker where everything goes wrong, including the marketing of this film — It’s NOT a rom-com. And Splitsville is the wildest couples uncoupling film of the last 10 years.

9. Stiller and Meara: Nothing Is Lost refers to every scrap of 8mm film, video tape and photography that Jerry Stiller — you know him as Frank Costanza on Seinfeld — held on to in the upper West Side apartment he shared with the even funnier Anne Meara. You’ll know their son, too. He’s Ben Stiller and he directs and discovers at the same time.

8. Sisu: Road To Revenge is a sequel that’s the “Godfather 2 of Sisu Movies.” A real live action Road Runner cartoon that’s a follow up to my favorite movie of the year in 2022. Trust me, these are WAY better than you’re expecting.

7. Sorry, Baby is a tour de force introduction to Eva Victor who wrote, stars and directs a very sad, frank and occasionally even funny film about a sexual assault and the real ramifications. It’s so good and real you think you’re spying on her.

6. One Battle After Another has Leonardo DiCaprio on the run as a modern day Abbie Hoffman protecting his daughter off the grid. Director Paul Thomas Anderson lets Sean Penn chew up too much cloak and dagger scenery or this would be higher on my list.

5. Black Bag finally gives us an adult thriller about spying and counter-spying that isn’t an Apple or Netflix series. This Steven Soderbergh/David Keopp collab stars Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as a husband and wife MI6 “snouple” who throw fascinating dinner parties. BYOB is bring your own Beretta.

4. Mr. Scorsese has Rebecca Miller in the director’s chair and gets stories out of Scorsese and his pals that you only thought you knew. Every great film he’s made has a fascinating backstory and they’re all here.

3. Sinners is a brilliant mashup of musical and horror genres with Michael B. Jordan twice as good as anyone else in a stellar cast — because he plays two brothers. This has a real chance of winning all the Oscars this year.

2. It Was Just an Accident unspools a political thriller with real politics. Fact: The director Jafar Panahi has to go to jail in his homeland of Iran. They don’t like the movie. You will. Former prisoners have to decide what to do when they capture the man who tortured them. Also, you tell me what the end means. It’s one of those.

1. (TIE) Hamnet and Sentimental Value both deal with creative fathers who have dysfunctional family relationships. In Sentimental Value, Stellan Skarsgard wants his daughter Renate Reinsve to star in his new movie. He’s a director, she’s an actress. When she says no, he hires American movie star Elle Fanning. That’s when all “Elle hits the Fanning.” The ending is sublime. Getting there is just as good.

Hamnet is Shakespeare’s story of loss told mostly through his wife. Bill is Paul Mescal but Mrs. Bard is Oscar-winner Jessie Buckley. I know they haven’t happened yet, but she’s winning. The whole movie happens in her face. And this ending is even more incredible. You don’t just watch what she’s seeing, you feel it. That doesn’t happen much anymore. Go.

By the way, it pains me to say this, because I loved Timothee Chalamet as Dylan, but Marty Supreme is not nearly as good as you’ve heard. That TikTok of him standing on top of the Sphere in Vegas is better. The film is a misfire. Now my neighbor Isaac Mizrahi who has a cameo in it will be mad at me.

Bill McCuddy has been an entertainment reporter and critic since 1994. He lives in Bridgehampton with his wife and their 100-inch tv. When he’s not there he’s at the Southampton Playhouse or Sag Harbor Cinema. Buy him some popcorn. Mrs McCuddy says “No butter!”